This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: It must be tough being a judge for the world's most prestigious environmental prize: Imagine having to choose between an ingenious machine that removes microplastics from a river in Europe or a company in East Africa that sells clean cookstoves through affordable weekly installments. Over the last six months, we have been working with colleagues at Green Futures Solutions at the University of Exeter to make that job a little easier.
We have found a way to distinguish between solutions that carry on working as long as people keep putting money into them and those with "tipping potential" that get better, cheaper and easier to adopt the more successful they are. Our new report applies the science of positive tipping points to the five Earthshot categories—nature, air, oceans, waste and climate—for the first time. After a northern summer of record-breaking heat, wildfires, floods and a deadly glacier collapse in the Nepal–Tibet border region, it would be easy to conclude the planet is only headed toward collapse.
But tipping points science says otherwise. The same dynamic principle that leaves coral reefs and rainforests vulnerable to a relatively abrupt breakdown can also work in our favor—if we know the right levers to pull. Most environmental interventions assume change is incremental and proportionate: Bigger problems require bigger budgets and lead to slower progress.
But many complex systems we rely on (technologies, markets, societal norms, ecosystems) can shift abruptly once a critical threshold is crossed. Solar power is a great example. Its cost fell around 90% in a decade because every panel sold stimulated innovation that made the next one cheaper.
This attracted more investment, which cut costs again and improved performance. The tipping point happened when self-propelling feedback took over. Clean electricity, our report finds, is now a "master cascade": As solar and wind have tipped in many markets, clean power can accelerate further progress in electric mobility, residential heating, industrial emissions and air quality.
Our report identifies the potential for such self-propelling feedback across 51 solution areas. Specifically, we identify whether the innovative solution is, or could quickly become, more affordable, accessible and attractive than the polluting incumbent system it seeks to replace. We have also assigned measurable 2030 targets to each solution area so progress can be tracked.
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